running effective meetings - augusta university · 2019-12-06 · running effective meetings thad...

Running Effective

Meetings

Thad Wilkins, MD, MBA

Professor

Department of Family Medicine

Medical College of Georgia

3 things to do while waiting for meeting to start:1. Sign into Agenda on google doc and figure out howto take picture and upload to shared agenda2. Review your homework exercise and be preparedfor group discussion3. Add any thoughts or questions to parking lot (last page of shared agenda)

Why we love to hate meetings

• Clogs up our days

• Hard to get “real” work done

• Feels like a waste of time

HBR guide to making every meeting matter. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business Review Press; 2016. pages cm p.

Objectives Participants will be able to identify key elements in:

• Preparing for and leading a meeting

• Leading an audio- or video

conference vs. an in-person

meeting

• Following up after a meeting

Agenda

• Opening Exercise – 10 min - Thad

– Split into 3 groups (include virtual

attendees)

– Brainstorm characteristics of

effective and ineffective meetings

• Report out to group – 10 min -

Group

• Prepare for meeting – 15 min -

Thad

• Lead meeting – 15 min - Thad

• Lead a virtual meeting – 15 min –

Thad

• After the meeting – 15 min - Thad

• Q&A – 10 min - Group

Do you really need a meeting?

• Don’t have time to prepare for the meeting

• Another method of communicating—email, phone,

text message—would work as well

• The subject isn’t worth everyone’s time

• Your group members are upset over a conflict

• The subject is a personnel issue that’s better handled

one-on-one

• You need to solicit a number of individuals’ opinions

Preparing for Your Meeting –

Why are you meeting?

• Don’t gloss over accurately identifying the purpose of the meeting

• What does the meeting need to accomplish

– Brainstorm? What?

– To Inform your team

– To fix a problem

– To clarify roles and responsibilities

– Rally the troops

– Make a decision

How to Design an Agenda for an Effective

Meeting

• Seek input from team members

• Select topics that affect the entire team

• Estimate a realistic amount of time for each topic

• Specify how members should prepare for the meeting

• Identify who is responsible for leading each topic

• End the meeting with a plus/delta


Plus Delta

• A Plus Delta evaluation is a formative evaluation

process that provides feedback on an experience or

event and collects ideas for future improvements. It is

framed in “improvement” language rather than language

that might be experienced negatively. The plus identifies

what went well.

How many people is too many for

my meeting?

Plan your attendee list

• The key decision makers for the issues involved

• The ones with information and knowledge about the topics under discussion

• People who have a commitment to or a stake in the issues

• Those who need to know about the information you have to report in order to do their jobs

• Anyone who will be required to implement any decisions made


8-18-1800 rule

• If you have to solve a problem or make a decision, invite no more than 8

people.

• If you want to brainstorm, then you can go as high as 18 people.

• If the purpose of the meeting is for you to provide updates, invite however

many people need to receive the updates.

• If the purpose of the meeting is for you to rally the troops, go for 1,800 — or

more!

Running meetings : lead with confidence, move your project forward, manage conflicts. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business Review Press; 2014. viii, 116 pages p.

Assign roles

• Leader: clarify the gathering’s purpose, objectives, constraints, and scope of authority; take responsibility for follow-up

• Facilitator: guides the group through the discussion, problem-solving, and decision-making phases of the meeting. May be responsible for pre-and post-meeting logistics

• Scribe: captures the key points, ideas, and decisions that result from the meeting; may also draft the post-meeting notes

Assign roles

• Contributor: participates actively by offering ideas and helping to keep the discussion on track

• Expert: shares knowledge on particular issues as requested. One advantage: You can ask an expert to attend just part of the meeting, keeping his or her contribution focused

• Timekeeper: tracks time spent on each agenda item and moves the discussion along to the next agenda item

Scheduling a Meeting the Right Way

• The first and most important question to ask is this — whose priorities come first?

• What Works for You?

• Here Are Some Times That Work

– Don’t ask all attendees blindly for times that work — it’s too ambiguous and open-ended

– Don’t commit to a date or time without making sure you have sign-off from the key players

– Keep a paper trail

Finish your preparations

• Prepare meeting

logistics

– Laptop or other

equipment; key to

the room

• Distribute reading

materials

– Usually a day or two

before the meeting

Meeting Preparation Checklist

• Have you . . .

• Identified the specific purpose of the meeting?

• Made sure you need a meeting at all?

• Developed a preliminary agenda?

• Selected the right participants and assigned roles?

• Decided where and when to hold the meeting and

confirmed availability of the space?


• Sent the invitation, notifying participants when and

where the meeting will be held?

• Sent the preliminary agenda to key participants

and other key stakeholders?

• Sent any reports or items needing advance

preparation to participants?

• Followed up with invitees in person, if appropriate?


• Identified, if appropriate, the decision-making process that will be used in the meeting?

• Identified, arranged for, and tested any required equipment?

• Finalized the agenda and distributed it to all participants?

• Verified that all key participants will attend and know their roles?

• Prepared yourself?

Leading your meeting

• Starting the meeting - Begin the meeting on time

• Introduce the meeting

• Establish round rules

– Beginning and ending on time

– Ask for everyone’s participation and openness to

new ideas

– Agree to listen to each other and limit interruptions

– Clarify how decisions will be made

– Explain your policy on multitasking and device use

Executing the agenda

• Keep the meeting moving

– Keep an eye on the agenda and the time—or assign a time-keeper

– As you go, summarize and review the progress of the meeting frequently and explicitly

– Record the ideas expressed about the most important topics on a flip chart or other tool

– Highlight the transitions from one agenda item or objective to the next

– Pause periodically to tell the group where you are in the meeting’s agenda

Using a Whiteboard

• Flip charts or whiteboards

• Newer technologies – virtual attendees

– Shared Evernote notebook or Google

Doc

– Webex whiteboard

• These tools can demonstrate to group

members in real time that their input is

captured and valued

Using a Whiteboard

• Keep the comments you’ve recorded visible for the entire meeting, and share them afterward

• Use your smartphone to take a picture of the whiteboard or flip chart and send to the group

• As you go, keep the whiteboard neat

• During a brainstorming session, capture every contribution first

– Then number, star, circle, or otherwise mark up the pages as the group evaluates, prioritizes, and makes decisions about the ideas generated

• Keep a visible list—a “parking lot”—of issues to be dealt with after the meeting

Make sure all points of view are heard

• Encourage feedback regularly, at each natural break in the session, or at least after each agenda item

• Ask a general question, such as “Have we forgotten anything?”

• Don’t allow louder, more vocal attendees to dominate

• Request feedback after the meeting

• Make sure your virtual participants are heard

Make sure all points of view are heard

• If your meeting has a dozen or more participants, break

the group down into pairs or trios, and have each small

group report back about a particular agenda item

• Ask someone to play devil’s advocate to bring different

points of view to the conversation

• Give the group a little time to think things over

• Don’t be in a rush to vote or reach a decision after you’ve

discussed an issue

Managing multitaskers

• Discourage your attendees from engaging in other

communications during the meeting

– No checking emails, surfing the web, checking sports

scores, or sending or replying to texts

• A participant who isn’t paying attention may miss an

important moment in the meeting

• Your ability to finish the meeting on time depends on

attendees giving you their full attention

End the meeting with a plus/delta

• Was the agenda distributed in time for everyone to prepare?

• How well did team members prepare for the meeting?

• How well did we estimate the time needed for each agenda item?

• How well did we allocate our time for decision making and discussion?

• How well did everyone stay on-topic? How well did team members speak

up when they thought someone was off-topic?

• How effective was the process for each agenda item?


Closing the meeting

• Closing needs to set up what happens after the meeting

• Set the right tone—so participants are motivated to follow through on their action items and feel excited about the project as a whole

• Begin by summarizing the session

• Reiterate key points, decisions, and next steps, along with who is responsible for what

• Consult whoever took notes to make sure you haven’t missed anything

• Leave on positive note - “Great discussion today. Thanks so much. We got a lot done!”

Lead a Virtual Meeting

• Make sure virtual participants are heard

– Initiate some casual chit-chat with the group,

particularly the remote participants, e.g. weather,

sports

• Provide vocal cues for virtual attendees that they’d get

visually if they were present

• Make a point of asking the virtual attendees for feedback

at crucial moments to make sure they know it’s a good

time to speak

Why consider a virtual meeting?

• Efficient use of time

• Can build a sense of teamwork and camaraderie for

colleagues who don’t see each other every day

• Technology can enhance collaboration

– create a virtual whiteboard

– vote anonymously

– run a chat room for side discussions

Tips for productive virtual meetings

• Use video

– Busts the half-attentive crowd

– Allows everyone to read each other’s reactions and moods

• Ban the “mute” function

– Mute may discourage spontaneous discussion

– May consider exception in noisy environments, e.g. airport

• Don’t have talkers and listeners

– May be more important in virtual meetings

– Don’t let those there in person do all of the talking

Tips for productive virtual meetings

• Assign tasks in advance if possible

– Whiteboard manager

– Scribe

– Timekeeper

• Make a partially virtual meeting entirely virtual

– Avoids offline conversations

– No one unduly benefits from side conversations

When virtual won’t cut it

• Not every topic is appropriate for a virtual meeting

– An event that may affect people’s jobs

– Informing staff of layoffs

• Brainstorming or blue-sky thinking is just better with

people in a room together

The Day After: Making Your Meeting

Stick

• Your job: convert the meeting’s conversation and

decisions into action afterward

• Create a meeting follow-up note: to reinforce to

participants what you accomplished, alert all

stakeholders to key decisions, and ensure that all have

heard the same message or information

• A succinct summary of key decisions and of who needs

to do what to put them into action

• If at all possible, the plan should fit on one page

A good follow-up memo: What?

• What specific decisions and outcomes resulted from the meeting, and what tasks need to be done as a result of the meeting?

– The definition of the problem

– The method of analysis

– The alternatives discussed

– The criteria for deciding

– The decision

– Tasks that need to be done

– The expected outcome

A good follow-up memo: Who?

• Who has responsibility for the

tasks that need to be done?

• Consider assigning tasks even if

those assignments weren’t

discussed during your time

together

A good follow-up memo: When?

• When must the tasks be completed?

• Include the date of the next meeting or follow-up

actions

• Mark those due dates on your calendar—and remind

individuals in advance of the deadline that you’re

expecting something from them

• Add a thank-you to the participants: They should

understand that you appreciate their hard work

How did you do? Was your meeting

effective?

• Judge by the results

– Did you accomplish your objective? Were the right people invited—and did they show up? Did most people participate?

• Seek out the critics

– Meet privately and informally after the meeting with those who seemed dissatisfied or who didn’t contribute as much as others

• What could you do better next time?

– Make notes about what you could do differently—and remember to refer to them before your next gathering

Conclusions

• Keep the meeting as small as possible

• Ban devices

• Keep it as short as possible — no longer than an hour

• Stand-up meetings are more productive

• Make sure everyone participates and cold-call those who don’t

• Never hold a meeting just to update people

• Always set an agenda out ahead of time – and be clear about the

purpose of the meeting


QUESTIONS?

running effective meetings - augusta university · 2019-12-06 · running effective meetings thad...

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